Item identification may be performed, for example, in case of self-service bag drop stations at airports by means of a hand scanning, which is used by the passenger or the airport clerk to scan the barcode printed on the bag tag. The controller of the conveyor belt then knows that the piece of luggage on the conveyor belt is associated to that bag tag and thereby is able to track the bag along its journey until it reaches its final destination within the airport premises. The drawback of this solution is that passengers often overlook the presence of a hand scanner and sometimes even do not know how to use it. Also, since it is a user-driven process, the time consumed to perform the hand scanning action is unpredictable and may be very long.
Another known solution is to utilize a housing where the passenger places his suitcase. The housing closes and the scanning takes place. The housing is closed on three sides from metal panels and on its rear side from the conveyor belt, which during the scanning stands vertically; thus, the housing behaves like a Faraday cage. Consequently, the scanner only detects the bag tag attached to the suitcase placed inside the housing. After the identification has taken place, the conveyor belt tilts until it gets to a horizontal position and the suitcase is transported away from the housing. The drawback of this solution is that it is very time consuming and requires a plurality of purpose-made housings, each containing an abundance of sensors, actuators and motors, which are all prone to error. Also, the scanning cannot be correctly performed if some gaps are left through which the signal can propagate, as otherwise the system could potentially scan bag tags that are not attached to the suitcase inside the housing and associate one of them to the suitcase.
Hence, there is a long-felt need in the technical field of item identification of overcoming the abovementioned drawbacks of the state-of-the-art solutions.